A Flight of 2 Birds

A month ago, a robin bird started building a nest in our verandah in one of the paper boxes that comes nowadays built like an actual nest.

It soon began apparent that it had laid some eggs as it would sit continuously for longer duration to give them some body heat. Mummy asked us not to disturb the nest. The ceiling fan was also not to be started in the last days of summer, lest one of the parent birds has an accident with it.

Of course it did happen. The accident! 

The small babies began to come out of the eggs and mark their presence by chirping. We could see 2 of them, then we noticed there were actually 4. Great! In-between, one of the parent birds, probably the male  happened to change it's course midway and thrashed onto the fan. It was probably dead as mummy lifted it up and looked for some signs of life. It did not move.

She kept it in the corner for some last minute hope. And hope did come. Someone told her that there was some movement, and the bird came back to life again after sprinkling some water on her. 

The birds then knew, we meant no harm, yet they chose to stay away from us.

Then came the rain and Strong Winds that come along.

The strong winds shattered the nest of the birds. However, mummy again came to rescue and rearranged the paper nest. The babies however were impatient to test the world waters and hence made a long jump on the ground. One of the fledgling was powerful to fly away in the vast world as it was of ripe age. One of them had died inside the nest, while the other one was consumed by a predator.

The last one interestingly tested our patience. 

It was only a baby of a week. We took turns to protect it as it hopped around while the mother came and feed the baby all day long. We had to protect the baby from the regular cat and the rain. In the evening, we kept it in our storeroom. It also made it a habit or rather liked the new place for night-sleep as it would automatically go hopping to the store-room gate.

I would try to lift it up when it needed to get a shelter, but it could not come easily in my hands. However, mummy would always pick it up with precision and it would always accept her hands. It seemed that both had developed a bond. 

It was only a week after that Mummy had to go abroad to visit my brother. It seemed that it would not fly that easily as it looked lazy and seemed to sit all day long not bothering to even give it a try. 

However, on the day that mummy had to catch a flight, I noticed that the baby was sitting on a higher platform and then a wall. 

As we were leaving for the airport in the afternoon, I noticed the baby become an adult and fly away confidently. 

Mother gave a satisfied look.